You Found Me
by Screaming Faeries
Summary: After a chance meeting between that poor boy and myself all those years ago, I thought that we would just be separated and never see each other again. Little did I know. Luna/Draco, One Day Challenge HPFC . "T" for now, may change later.


_"Who will bring me flowers when it's over? And who will bring me comfort when it's cold? And who will I belong to when the day just won't give in? And who will tell me how it ends, and how it all begins…"_

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**First Chapter for the "One Day" fanfiction challenge on the HPFC. **

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_21__st__ December, 1998_

It was the Christmas holidays. Hogwarts was a _mess_. With Snape acting as headmaster, and Death Eaters taking over professors, it was dark days in the castle. I don't know why I was still there. I could've gone into hiding, with my father and with my friends, but it seemed safer to see it out. If there were students missing from Hogwarts when the academic year started in September of 1997, they were to be sought out instantly. Far few muggle-borns returned to Hogwarts, some half-bloods vanished too. Those that were left were left to deal with the cruelty that some of the Death Eater's had to offer, by means of "teaching".

Everything was different. _Everyone _was different. It was a typical way to commence a fairytale – full of misery. I stood outside in the cold in my nightshirt, staring out at the pale night sky, laden with thick, grey snow clouds, the odd icy drift passing me through, my long blonde hair falling across my face. It was hard, but we would all be out of it soon. I only had that to contend with. I smiled, assuring myself that everything would be fine, like I always did (though at this point, I didn't have any idea that I was going to be kidnapped from my own bed in a week or so, and left to starve and suffer in the basement of the Malfoy Manor).

Malfoy. Draco Malfoy. Everyone seemed to despise him at that point. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, naturally took a horrendous dislike to the boy as he was made obvious a Death Eater, and one that had _failed _so terribly, which led to why everyone _else _seemed to have such a hatred for him. Slytherin, his friends, and the Death Eater's in the castle at the time despised him for his failure, for his cowardice and embarrassment.

I looked up at the astronomy tower where I knew he would be stood, and he was. His pale face contrasting with the ebony black of the sky. He looked hurt; he always looked hurt nowadays. Standing alone in corridors. His silver eyes vacant and lost. Before, in the past, we deemed him to be suspicious and curious because his smirk never met those jewelled eyes, his snigger always seemed just a bit _too _cocky and self-assured. That year of 1997, his smile never existed. Not once, not even a fake attempt. He was ruined, degraded, ripped to shreds by expectations and assumptions that he simply could not fulfil. He wasn't a terrible person. Yes, he was a coward, a fucking coward, but he was hurt. He was broken. I didn't hate Malfoy in 1997. Hell, I didn't particularly like him _at all_, he was still Malfoy. Draco Malfoy, who called my best friend a Mudblood and made Harry's life difficult all through their lives at Hogwarts. But still, he was just a boy, a teenage boy like anyone else in the castle. He was just unlucky enough to have been pushed down the wrong path.

I was heading up to the astronomy tower, slowly, my eyes wandering along the corridors, searching for any teachers that could be lurking, ready to spring. I wondered how the Death Eaters could monitor which students were out of their beds. I wondered if they _cared_ at all. Previously, the professors were only interested in the safety of the students, which was why we had bedtimes and rules to keep us from leaving the dormitories. These professors hardly cared about the welfare of us. I remembered Harry's map, the funny little piece of parchment with the moving dots and the names of _everyone _that set foot in the castle. He said that his dad made it, with Sirius and Professor Lupin. I wondered if Harry and Ron and Hermione were looking at the map now, wherever they were. I wonder what they would think, watching as I neared Malfoy, closer and closer.

But they would be far too busy to be pondering over silly little maps, wouldn't they? I remember wishing at that moment that Harry had left me, or one of us with that map, it would be of great use at that moment, when I was scouring the corridors late at night. It would be a stupid idea though. We would be punished by the means of pain if one of us was found with that map.

I pushed the door open to the astronomy tower and climbed the spiralling stairs to the top. Malfoy was still leaning there, hanging over the balcony, looking down at the ground. At the ground, the spot where Dumbledore had fallen, fallen, flown down and hit the ground as he died. Malfoy was speaking before he realised who was standing behind him.

"Sometimes, when it's dark like this, I think about doing it, you know. Ending it all. Just stepping off this balcony and hitting the ground, like he did." There was a lump in his throat, I could hear it. "Everything would be better, then. Peaceful." He sighed, and turned around to face me. Even then, his misty eyes focused on me as I moved closer. "Loony Lovegood? What are you doing here?"

"You shouldn't call people things like that, Draco," I replied quietly.

"I shouldn't have done a lot of things that I've done," he muttered.

I stepped up onto the balcony and stood next to him, looking out over the grounds of Hogwarts. It really was a beautiful place to stand, especially at night. I could see right out over the dark lake, the forest, which shuddered and moved eerily. I could make out the tracks of the rail for the Hogwarts Express, and the Quidditch pitch. Even to an extent, I could see the hedges and grassy bushes that were used for the Triwizard Tournament a few years previously. Or maybe I was forcing myself to imagine that last one.

"Why are you up here, Luna?"

"I saw you, when I was standing down on the grounds."

"You spotted me?" Malfoy raised his blonde eyebrows slightly. "From all the way down there?" I nodded, keeping my gaze on the lake. I wondered for a moment how it must be in the village of the Merpeople down there, under the glassy exterior of the lake. Were they being tortured and traumatised by the Wizarding War too, like so many other magical beasts were? Or were they living in bliss, totally unaware of the situation that was going on above their watery world? I remembered something about Dolores Umbridge wanting the Merpeople rounded up and tagged, because of her hatred for half-breeds. Stupid woman, to be so naïve to automatically assume that Merpeople were bred from humans. Malfoy's pale hand in my face stoppered my train of thought. "You're so vacant, Luna." He looked down at my chest; at the necklace I was wearing – a string of butterbeer corks. He plucked one of them. "What's this about?"

"Good luck, I suppose." I looked at the brownish cork in his hand. "I feel quite superstitious some of the time. Especially in times like these." At the reminder of where we were, and what was going on around us, Malfoy dropped my necklace and it slapped back against my chest. He turned back to face the sky. "Do you sit out here every night, Draco?"

"Most. Do you wander about the grounds every night, Luna?"

"Most," I whispered back.

We stood in silence for a few moment, continuing to stare out at the sky. I wondered what he was thinking, was his mind as flooded with obscure thoughts as mine was? I often thought and considered the most pointless of scenarios or issues just to block out what was really happening. Did Draco do that? Or did he think about what was really going on in the world at the moment, how it was affecting him? Or was it possible that he just wiped his mind like a blank slate, just ignore everything that was going on? A sudden breeze ran me through, and I shuddered, and wrapped my arms around myself. Draco looked me up and down, and rolled his eyes, removing his blazer jacket and draping it across my shoulders. It wasn't exactly a romantic gesture, he more or less threw the thing at me rather than offered it to me in a gentlemanly way, but it didn't matter. He still showed to me that there was still _some _piece of a human being left in his hollow, empty shell of a body.

"You're lonely, Draco," I said to the sky. I felt him look at me, but he didn't say anything.

"You speak like you know me. But I don't think I've ever spoken to you before, at all," he replied. I smiled, there was still some of that cockiness left there as well. "Don't you hate me, Luna Lovegood?" I looked over at him, making eye contact for the first time. _Real _eye contact. The first time I actually felt like Draco was looking at me, like Draco was actually seeing through his eyes properly.

"I don't know you, Draco."

He stared me out for another couple of seconds, and I stared back, unblinking. "I am lonely."

"I know."

"Everyone hates me. I don't care about the general public of Hogwarts, but people who I thought I could trust despise me. Crabbe and Goyle, they look at me with such disgust…and…my _father…_" He sucked his bottom lip in and drew in a deep breath, looking at the ground. "I have no one. No one left, all because of something I felt forced into doing because of my bloodline…my fucking bloodline…it doesn't even matter…" I moved closer to him, intrigued, looking up into his peaky, ashen face. "I just want someone, you know…I just want to feel…" his eyes fluttered shut. "Luna, will you sleep with me tonight?"

I blinked, my body stiffened up. The musical and poetic sadness of the situation we were in seemed to cease instantly. "I beg your pardon?" His eyes flew open and he searched my face for an answer.

"No! Not like that! I mean…" I realised he hadn't been expecting the worst, and relaxed.

"Do you really need me to, Draco? I mean, you just said. You don't know me. I don't know you, you can't really want me to crawl into your bed with you," I coughed out a small, false laugh. Draco didn't reply, just looked at me quietly. Those eyes, which I felt like I'd made work again, were beginning to decease before me. So I sighed, and nodded, and found myself following him to the Slytherin dungeons. It was asking for trouble, sneaking into the Slytherin dormitories, I was bound to be caught. Draco pulled the curtains around his bed and I averted my eyes as he removed his shirt, and sat down on his bed, tapping the space beside him. It was awkward and clumsy as we struggled into the single bed together, his arm eventually seeking the confidence to wrap around me, my posture gradually warming into him. It was nice, to have someone, during those dark times.

In the early hours of the morning, I slipped out of his bed and tip-toed away from the dungeons. I vowed not to speak about it again. It was unlikely, during this wizarding war or at all after the war, that I would ever need to speak to Draco Malfoy again unless I found myself at the Astronomy tower where he spent his evenings. It was a one off, a little secret that Draco would surely be embarrassed of if anyone were to find out. Just before I left, I remembered looking down at that peaky face, his arms still holding someone that was no longer there, and I removed my string of butterbeer corks from my neck, and placed it on the pillow beside his head.


End file.
